Caught in the Sun: Off the Post
by TachyonOne
Summary: Bad luck follows Ataru all the way to a World Cup match and a date with Lum. Part of a special fanfic series.


For more information about this fanfic series, go to http://www.infinitedeferral.com/ or for other fanfics in this series, go to my profile at http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=79367 .  
  
Caught in the Sun  
A 2002 World Cup / Anime Fanfic Series  
By Roehl Sybing (indef@infinitedeferral.com)  
  
Episode Twelve: Off the Post  
Group H: Tunisia v Japan @ Osaka  
An Urusei Yatsura Fanfic  
  
The excitement of a World Cup match. The cheering and the jubilation among the collective tens of thousands. The privilege of being part of an event so rare.  
It almost offset the price of bringing Lum along.  
"Isn't this exciting, darling?" she asked.  
"Uh," Ataru replied, "Yeah, it sure is!"  
Ataru, for once, was enjoying himself. He had been lucky enough to grab tickets to see not just any game, but a game played by the co-hosts, and though he was essentially coerced by Lum to take her with him - after threats to ensure the damage to his attendance record - going to the game alone was simply unthinkable, especially since he became the sudden envy of every woman (and some men) once the seats were his. So at the very least Ataru had a date, even if it was not the date he preferred. It became less desirable still as he was pestered constantly by Lum's ignorance of the game.  
"Should that be happening?" was Lum's twenty-seventh question since the start of the match.  
But this time, Ataru himself was curious, too. "Not really," he replied.  
---  
"Don't look now, folks, but Japan and Tunisia are setting the record for most shots taken at a World Cup match without a single goal scored! Shots on target so far are an overwhelming 67-61 in favor of Japan, but the stat does not tell the whole story. After sixty-four minutes of play, all but seven shots have hit the goalpost!"  
"The flurry of shots started taking place in the middle of the first half, when they just started looking at themselves and asking why their shots simply weren't going in. The keepers have been letting the opposing strikers try their hand at it because, hey, they haven't been tested yet today! Talk about a string of bad luck for both sides! Even the referees are starting to wonder just what is going on, but as there are no calls to make, there's no reason to stop play!"  
---  
"Are they supposed to be hitting the goalposts like that?"  
"I don't think so, Lum."  
"That's too bad. They're really good at it!"  
Ataru would've groaned at such a remark if he did not believe his own eyes. The fans around him were beginning to gawk at the performance on the field, as it was too peculiar to look at. What had started as a soccer match slowly deteriorated into a desperate experiment by each side to drag the ball into their opponents' box, only to find that their last touch of the ball sent it, wherever it was at first, bouncing off the uprights. The striker would slip, the grass would be too soft, he would be distracted...whatever it was, the ball would not cross the line.  
Then, to the relief of both Lum and Ataru, the sight of Sakura wandering about in front of the first row of seats offered the possibility that some explanation might be available.  
"What's that quack doing here?" Ataru said.  
---  
"I'll have you know I have been following an evil spirit all the way here," Sakura said, "I figured trouble would be following you two around."  
"What's that supposed to mean?" he said.  
"Darling!" Lum cried, "She's right! Look!"  
The three of them looked on the field, where Lum was pointing. The corner kick sailed into the air, meeting the forward with perfect accuracy. Within a foot or two of the goalline, his head made contact with the ball, but as it had done for much of the game, it bounced off the near post, and rattled back and forth, a few times between the uprights and his head. That is, until he fell to the ground and the ball slowly rolled away, leaving the audience to throw some taunts and jeers onto the field.  
Sakura observed all the action, saying, "This is more serious than I thought. Something has possessed that ball!"  
Ataru replied as they stretchered away the whimpering player in the background, "Well, what took you so long in getting here?"  
"I," she said, turning away, "I've been preoccupied."  
"With what?"  
The answer came to the three of them as a company largely made up of boys from Tomobiki High School stormed their way to the front of the stands. They waved about banners for the home team and wore facepaint and kicked around soccer balls for their own amusement, but their intentions at the game were completely transparent.  
"Nurse Sakura!"  
"We're so glad we found you!"  
"We love soccer too!"  
"I have an extra ticket!"  
Sakura looked at them with much disgust, not that they picked up on any of it. They had followed her all the way to Nagai Stadium, mistaking the game to be one of her pursuits that they should make their own. The sorceress thought she had lost them on the way to Osaka, only to find that they stayed right behind her the whole time.  
"Ugh," she said, "I have to get out of here..."  
"Wait!" Ataru cried, "What about the ball?"  
Sakura looked back upon walking out, hoping to lose the rest of the bunch. "I can't perform an exorcism like this!" she said.  
"But, but--"  
Ataru cut off in mid-sentence as the crowd groaned once more, as the ball bounced up and down perfectly on the nose of a midfielder, his fallen body all over the pitch.  
"We have to put a stop to this, Darling!" Lum pleaded to Ataru.  
Instead of agreeing with her, though, he started to crack a smile, which broke out into utter laughter.  
"Darling!"  
"I'm sorry!" he said, "I can't help it! For once, there's someone who's more unlucky than I am!"  
"Aren't you going to do something?"  
"What am I going to do? It's not my problem! I--oof!"  
---  
"Looks like Nakata has finally taken out his frustrations on the match ball, and it sails out for a throw-in by Tunisia. Got some good distance on it, too bad his other fourteen shots have not gone where he wanted them to go! New ball in play, Tunisia throws it in--look at this, the fans over there are having a little fun with the ball, or is it the other way around? The ball's giving some poor kid the same bounces it's been giving everyone on the pitch! It is just attacking the man, he looks like he's trying to get away from the ball."  
"Sure is an unlucky kid, huh? More than the players on both sides, it seems!"  
---  
"Darling!" Lum cried as Ataru suffered the brunt of the force delivered by the ball, apparently teased by what he had said.  
"Ow! Ouch! Get it away from me!" he said.  
His classmates talked among each other. "You go help him," one said.  
"Nah-ah, whatever he's got, I'm not getting from him!" another replied.  
Lum watched helplessly as her reluctant devotee got under the bouncing ball as it moved all about his head. It got his nose, his eyes, his mouth, to say nothing that his hands got a workout just trying to keep it away. He wailed in constant suffering, and Lum just couldn't watch any more. As the ball continued to bounce on its own, she crouched down and made one grab for it, keeping it under her clutches with both hands.  
"This ball must be possessed!" Lum said, still struggling to keep it in her hands, "I can't hold onto it!"  
Ataru lifted himself up from the floor, "I should go get Sakura!"  
"Hurry!" she cried quite comically, as the ball desperately tried to escape. It forced Lum's arms to move about quite freely, managing to knock around Ataru a few more times. When it realized it wasn't breaking free, it made one last move, flying up into the air and taking Lum with it.  
Ataru watched his date soar inexplicably into the sky. "This is so weird," he said, naturally following Lum out of the stadium on his two legs.  
---  
She could get away if she wanted to, but Lum kept hold of the spirited ball nonetheless. She sailed over the stadium wall before regaining control, trying to force herself back down onto the ground.  
"You can't get away from me!" she said.  
Fortunately for her, Sakura was on the ground, making her way out of the stadium. "What is with those schoolboys?" she asked herself before looking up in surprise.  
Ataru and the rest joined the sorceress at the stadium entrance, watching Lum struggle with the match ball. It flew up one more time, and she forced it back down. It dragged her across the pavement, and she tried to put her feet back up. Finally, in the midst of her entire group, she let go of the ball, giving up as it went for Ataru once again.  
"Not again!" Ataru said as he fell to the ground, the ball still taking out its hurt feelings on the most unlucky of the bunch.  
"I thought I'd seen everything," one of them said as the schoolboys watched, searching for the right line to ridicule Ataru.  
"I'm alright..." Lum said weakly, picking herself up.  
"That's enough," Sakura said, getting out her tools, "I must release this spirit."  
Ataru had the ball in his hands, firmly away from his face as it pushed forward with great force, perhaps to attack him one more time.  
"Somebody help with this thing!" he cried as he looked past his attacker to see Sakura hunched over him with a hammer. "What are you doing? Get away from me!"  
"Hold still!" Sakura commanded, holding the hammer up.  
"Don't hit me! Don't you think I've had enough!?"  
"I said hold still!"  
"Sakura!"  
She held the hammer in one hand and an object unseen to Ataru behind the ball in the other. Sakura, with one swift blow, took her weapon and struck it against the large nail pointed at the match ball. The hole in it caused all the air to come spilling out, deflating the spirited ball and rendering it powerless.  
Ataru opened his eyes, closed shut when Sakura made the killing blow. He looked at Lum and the others and then looked almost with gratitude at the sorceress.  
"Sakura," he said very reluctantly, "You...s-s-sav--"  
"Don't mention it," she insisted, "I'm going home."  
Naturally, the schoolboys followed her away from the stadium, leaving Ataru and Lum to themselves.  
"What about us?"  
"You're our hero!"  
"Come sit with us!"  
"I have an extra ticket!"  
Lum looked at the bruised Ataru. "Darling!" she said, gladly flinging her arms and wrapping them around him.  
"Ow!" Ataru said, reacting to the pressure on one of his tender wounds.  
"Are you alright?"  
"Uhh," he mumbled, trying to speak through his fat lips, "Never better!"  
She looked at her reluctant boyfriend and examined all of his bruises. "Does this happen at every game?" she asked innocently.  
  
END. 


End file.
